Another week of the college football offseason has gone by, and the last day or two was dominated by talk of something that will never happen: freshmen becoming ineligible again.

Even if this were a good idea, it wouldn’t happen because of the impracticality of it. I guess I agree with those who are viewing this as a shot across the bow at the professional leagues, particularly the NBA, regarding how their rules affect colleges, but I’m not too convinced it’s going to do anything if that is the case. They have plenty of their own things to worry about. Continue reading This week in the Big Ten: Bad idea receives poor reception→

I think this will be one of the better Big Tens we’ve seen in the past decade or so, but I’m not sure there is an elite team in the league. There should be depth, and that could set things up for a strong 2015, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Ohio State is rebuilding on defense, but that unit could hardly be worse than it was when the ’13 season concluded, so it’s hard to count that as a negative. Michigan State’s offense was a sore spot early last season but finished on a high and returns almost everyone of consequence. They’ll have some new faces on the offensive line, but that unit wasn’t great anyway so they can probably get by with an average front again this season all things considered. Teams may play them differently now that Connor Cook is a known commodity, though. How he responds to that will tell a large part of the tale this season. Recent conference history is littered with quarterbacks who looked good early in their career but plateaued.

Michigan State is, pardon the pun, green in some spots on defense, and it is unlikely the Spartans will be as tough there regardless of how good coaches Mark Dantonio and Pat Narduzzi have proven to be on that side of the ball. The same can be said of Ohio State’s offensive line, though, so it all could be a wash when the teams play Nov. 8. Continue reading 2014 Big Ten football picks→

I am going around the league recapping spring football around the Big Ten for BuckeyeSports.com.

While we’re still rolling out the reviews from the new West, the East is complete.

The race for the first East division crown figures to be interesting as Michigan looks to pick up the pieces from a lost season, Michigan State tries to maintain its defensive strength while growing on offense and Penn State adjusts to another coaching change and the continued effects of scholarship reductions.

Like this:

Per Scout.com’s Signing Day Primer we learn Rutgers and Maryland are all set to continue the Big Ten’s recent tradition of recruiting poorly:

Another sidelight to the 2014 class was the decimation of Rutgers’ class, which at one time was in the Top 30 but suffered through 12 decommitments.

The Scarlet Knights’ top in-state player is No. 10 Kevin Wilkins, and they only have two of the top 20 players in the state staying home. In fact, Notre Dame, Penn State, Michigan State, Virginia Tech and Miami each have as many commitments from New Jersey’s Top 20 as the Scarlet Knights.

Maryland didn’t have much in-state success either as only one of the top 25 players in the state opted to remain home, although the state’s No. 1 player, four-star offensive tackle Damian Prince of Forestville (Md.) Bishop McNamara, has the Terps among his finalists heading into signing day.

Like this:

Adding Maryland and Rutgers is a good play for the Big Ten in terms of keeping up with the Joneses. I do believe it’s inevitable there would be more expansion with everyone getting bigger, and I understand the potential value of those two programs with those two markets. I still don’t like it in general.

I think expansion leaves fans worse off in the long run with regionalism and familiarity suffering in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. I’m pro capitalism, but at some point enough is enough. That’s especially true if you look at the ways a lot of these programs choose to spend their money.

Maryland has been intriguing to me ever since they came up; Rutgers not so much. I don’t believe Jim Delany is really going to get the benefits he expects from the Scarlet Knights, but it probably doesn’t matter at this point. Maryland I can see being competitive in a variety of sports and actually bringing the TV market that they want. I suppose there’s a good chance both programs can bring some talent into the conference, but I think it remains to be seen how much conference affiliation means in recruiting overall. Plus Big Ten schools already recruit both areas regularly, as some do Virginia, Georgia and especially Florida.

I’m also willing to believe that this is the beginning of a more powerful play, maybe even one that still brings Notre Dame around. I’ve heard the chatter about Texas, but I have a hard time believing it. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

What got me fired up on Twitter earlier this week was a report that might turn out to have been premature about the Big Ten divisions. Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Virgina and others have their own appeal as well.

I think in general Jim Delany and the conference presidents have done things they needed to do to keep the Big Ten competitive. However, I think they’ve made several missteps along the way that have lessened the overall positives.

The number one issue is the divisions, which were botched from the beginning, so I’ve looked at the further expansion of the way as a good chance for them to undo that gigantic blunder.

While the league and its members overall will be stronger financially based on the moves that have been made, I think Ohio State and Michigan have gotten the smallest benefit of all. Maybe that’s one of the symptoms of being on the top, but I think that the damage has been greater than it needs to be based on some decisions that have been made within the context of the overall expansion.

The best thing this conference had going for it for a very long time was Ohio State’s football rivalry with Michigan, and I think it was already asking a lot to push it down the line in terms of prestige by adding a conference championship game. They really added insult to injury by splitting the teams up and creating the possibility of a rematch, something that changes a fundamental dynamic of the rivalry that exists throughout amateur football: you play your rival once a year for all the bragging rights and whatever conference spoils come with it. In basketball (and the NFL), teams play twice (once at each home venue) so it remains symmetrical. One at your place, one at mine. That’s fun and still easy to digest, but it doesn’t offer the finality of the once-a-year-and-done cycle in college and high school football. Maybe there is a rubber match in the postseason, but that has as much a chance to dilute the product as it does decide who’s boss for the year.

We tend to be admittedly OSU-Michigan centric here (for obvious reasons), but it should be noted they split up a significant historic rivalry for just about every team in the conference, too, with their totally misguided attempt to set the divisions (with their pretentious and embarrassing names) by competitive balance. Programs are inevitably going to rise and fall through the course of time, and I’m not convinced they split the teams in the most balanced way, anyway. Yes, they locked in many rivalries yearly with permanent crossover games, but that screws up the competitive balance, too, and wouldn’t be necessary in as many cases as it is with the current set up if they just split the league geographically.

Why the leaders of the two most powerful programs in the Big Ten don’t recognize this and push for it is beyond me.

In closing I’ll say the Big Ten divisions and the Ohio State Pro Combat uniform experience are similar to me in that they aren’t necessarily terrible ideas but their execution has made them more disruptive than they needed to be to the good things the conference and the Buckeyes already had going for them.

I don’t have an issue with alternate uniforms, especially properly executed throwbacks, but Ohio State has accepted them from their Nike overlords in the worst possible way in time every year but one.

Like concluding the regular season and deciding conference and sometimes national title fates, part of the Ohio State-Michigan mystique is seeing the winged helmets against the silver ones covered in a Buckeye leaves. Both schools have changed their looks throughout the long and storied existence of their football programs, but they’ve largely remained the same since the era that defines it most began. The Buckeyes moved to their current look – including the beginning of the Buckeye leaf helmet sticker tradition – in the late 1960s, and the Ten Year War soon launched with legendary head coaches Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler stalking opposite sidelines and making national headlines.

Just like the Big Ten can expand without altering as many traditions as it has, Ohio State can play ball with Nike and offer one little caveat. There are 12 games (or more) every season, and I see nothing unreasonable about insisting one is off the table when alternate uniforms are discussed. Just like divisions.